PORTLAND, Ore. — This week, the Portland City Council approved spending $1.5 million to put the downtown elk statue back up, according to Oregon Public Broadcasting (OPB).
The Portland Parks Foundation had said in August that the elk statue will be returned to its rightful place sometime in 2024.
It was removed during the protests of 2020 after demonstrators lit bonfires around the base of the bronze statue.
The statue was just one part of the Thompson Elk Fountain between Chapman Square and Lownsdale Square on Southwest Main Street in downtown Portland. While the statue itself wasn't damaged, city officials removed it in July of 2020 after the fires set by protestors damaged the fountain's stone base.
Over the 120 years, historians have recorded around 30 major protests that took place at the fountain. An element that distinguished the 2020 protests was that the fountain basins were empty, due to city mandates that shut down fountains during the pandemic. That meant the fires that were started there caused damage never seen before.
The Thompson Elk Fountain is named after the former Portland mayor, David P. Thompson. In the 1900s he commissioned the now historic landmark to honor the Oregon Humane Society, which he co-founded.
The restoration of the other statues that were toppled during the protests have not been mentioned as of yet by the city council.
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